Welcome to our 2017 updated Sync.com review. Since its founding in 2011, this Toronto-based cloud-storage platform has been forging a reputation for strong security and user privacy and earning regard as one of the best cloud storage services available.

Key to this success is Sync.com’s zero-knowledge architecture, which prevents anybody but you from decrypting stored content. On top of that, Sync.com’s home country of Canada has some of the best privacy laws in the world.

While security and privacy may be Sync.com’s hallmark, the platform also gives users a powerful set of features to drive collaboration and productivity, which includes file sharing and device syncing. The net result is that Sync.com now sits at the top of Cloudwards.net cloud comparison chart.

Stick with us as we revisit this slick storage service to help you decide if it’s the right tool to keep your content secure.

Or, if you’ve already made up your mind to subscribe, follow this link to Sync.com and get your first 5GB for free.

Strengths & Weaknesses

Pros:

Cons:

No third-party tools

No block-level file copying

No monthly plans

Sync.com certainly has more hits than misses, making it a great all-around pick for those shopping for cloud storage. Two of the weaknesses we noted above, in fact — no third-party integrations and lack of block-level copying — are due to the platform’s approach to security. More on that in a bit.

Features

90% – Excellent

As a cloud storage service, Sync.com lets you upload files of up to 40GB to its data centers and access them through a downloadable desktop client, web browser or mobile device. Doing so protects your content from hard-drive crashes and file corruptions, though not to the degree of any of our best online backup services (see our backup vs. storage article if you’re unclear on the difference).

The real goal of an online storage service like Sync.com is to expand your storage capabilities beyond the confines of your hard drive. To that end, Sync.com outperforms most cloud storage services with its 2TB storage plan. See pricing, next, for the details.

The secondary purpose of cloud storage is to enhance productivity by allowing you to sync content across multiple devices. Doing so means you can make a file edit on one device, then access that same file on another device and see your edits reflected near real-time.

Sync.com lets you invite others to access your stored content with folder and file sharing capabilities. We’ll talk more about these particular features in a bit, in the file sharing and sync segment of this review.

Unlike most cloud storage tools, Sync.com does place emphasis on security over productivity. The centerpiece of this approach is its zero-knowledge encryption, which prevents anyone, even Sync.com employees, from reading your files without you first supplying them with the encryption key.

As a security-first cloud storage platform, Sync.com doesn’t have the application integrations of cloud storage heavyweights like Dropbox, Google Drive or OneDrive. This is because tight control over your content means foregoing API access for third-party tools like Microsoft Word, Slack and Trello.

Also of note are Sync.com’s versioning capabilities, which let you rollback file changes in case of an accidental file change or a corruption caused by a disk error or even malware (like ransomware).

By default, Sync.com stores all old versions of files for up to 30 days, though you can adjust that term if you’d like. With Sync.com Pro, you can store unlimited versions indefinitely without eating into your cloud storage.

A Pro subscription also lets you use a “vault” feature, letting you backup any folder or file to the cloud without syncing it to your hard drive. Sync.com also has a selective sync feature to turn off syncing for certain content in your sync folder.

Pricing

90% – Excellent

Sync.com has a free Starter plan that nets you a generous 5GB of storage, plus subscription plans for both individual and business users.

The costs are very competitive. For point of reference, half as much storage with a Dropbox personal plan (1TB) costs $2 more per month. Business plans require at least two users. Regardless of subscription plan, Sync.com gives you a 30-day money back guarantee if you’re not happy.

Many of Sync.com’s more advanced features, including unlimited versioning, link expiry dates, remote wipes, unlimited data transfers, audit logs and priority email support are only granted to paying customers.

Business plan users also have access to an admin console to provision users.

With Sync.com’s referral program, you can earn a gigabyte for every friend you bring on board, and they’ll get an extra gigabyte of storage, too. There are no limits on how many referrals you can make.

Payment options are limited but do include a Bitcoin option in addition to Visa, Mastercard and Paypal.

Ease of Use

95% – Excellent

There many different ways to access files stored in the Sync.com cloud. You can download a desktop client, access content through a web browser or use a smartphone app.

Installing the client on your desktop does two things: it creates a desktop folder and gives you access to a taskbar icon. The desktop folder is what’s known as sync folder. Files moved into this folder are get stored on your hard drive and in the cloud.

We’ll take a closer look at syncing in the next segment. The taskbar icon lets you quickly access your sync folder or open the web interface. There are also some additional options to pause sync, view recently fetched files, get support and manage preferences.

While accessing content from your desktop sync folder is usually much faster, you can see everything you’ve got stored in the Sync.com cloud through your browser, too. Not only is this useful for accessing content on a computer that doesn’t belong to you, the web interface has some additional functions designed to enhance the overall experience.

The organization is simple, which will make navigation easy for most users from the start. Along the top of the page are links for:

Files: view folders and files stored in the cloud

Vault: view archived, non-synced files stored in the cloud

Links: view link shares connected to files that you’ve created

Events: view recent activity on your account

Upgrade: increase your storage plan

There’s also a drop-down menu where you can jump to your settings and log out, and help button for support.

Drag-and-drop functionality is supported in browser for ease of use.

There’s not much more to the web experience. Compared with other services, including OneDrive, Google Drive and even Dropbox, Sync.com is about as simple as cloud storage can get and that’s a good thing.

The smartphone experience is also smooth, with apps for iOS and Android. You can browse, preview files and upload files.

With a recent September 2017 update, the mobile app can now share files directly with built-in link creation.

The mobile app now features the ability to access files when you’re not connected to the internet by tagging files for offline use, as well as better support for opening Sync.com files in third-party mobile apps — including Microsoft Office.

We love the fact that the Sync.com mobile app lets you automatically upload both photos and now videos to the cloud; many cloud storage smartphone apps don’t. To restrict data usage, you can also set media to only upload over a WiFi connection.

File Sharing & Syncing

95% – Excellent

Cloud storage is about more than moving beyond the limitations of your computer’s hard drive space. Good tools let you send content to other devices, whether through sharing or syncing.

Sync.com folder and file shares can be performed from the web browser by clicking the “share” button associated with the object you’d like to share. If the object is a folder, you can either invite specific users or generate a link that anybody can use. If it’s a file, you can only generate a link.

Folder shares let you input the email address of the people you’d like to collaborate with, even if they aren’t Sync.com users themselves.

While folder shares are generally recommended for teams, as they let you restrict access based on email address, folder and file links are more useful for when you need to create non-specified access.

Sync.com does link sharing right by letting you attach both passwords and expiry dates to them, although expiry dates do require a Pro subscription. We also love the fact that Sync.com Pro lets you set download limits on shares and view download stats, which is rare for a cloud storage service. Pro even lets you remotely wipe data on any share.

Such controls decrease the risk of a folder or file link falling into the wrong hands and jeopardizing your intellectual property or confidential information.

Many other cloud storage tools, including Google Drive and OneDrive, don’t actually let you password protect links. Sync.com does, and goes even further by letting you add zero-knowledge protection to link shares by checking the “enhanced privacy” box near the bottom of the link share window.

Link shares aren’t the only way to get content from one device to another. Sync.com lets you sync your devices, a capability that hinges in part on the sync folder created on your device. Here’s a look at the sync folder on our test computer:

Any content moved into this folder is stored on your hard drive and in the cloud. It’s also automatically distributed to any other devices with a Sync.com client installed. This allows for device synchronization, which lets you move from one device to another and work on the same file without having to worry about messing with thumb drives or emailing large files.

While sync benefits work productivity by saving time and reducing errors, if you’re working with limited hard drive space, you may not want to store some content on your device, accessing it only through the cloud, instead.

Sync.com has two ways to do this. First, you can click the taskbar icon, then go to “advanced” and turn off syncing for certain files. This feature is known as selective sync.

Sync.com also lets you use a feature called “vault” to send any folder or file directly to the cloud. Just right click on the object and select “copy to Sync vault.” That object will be archived to the cloud, but not synced.

While this feature functions something like a backup service, we wouldn’t recommend using it as one because Sync.com doesn’t give you any sort of backup scheduler to plan recurrent backups. For that, we’d recommend a dedicated backup program: read about some of these solutions in our Backblaze review or IDrive review.

The only miss with Sync.com is a feature called block-level copying, which is a file transfer algorithm that speeds up syncing by only copying the parts of files that actually changed. However, as a zero-knowledge service, Sync.com isn’t actually able to incorporate it, because to do so would require that Sync.com be able to read your file content.

Speed

84% – Very Good

To see how Sync.com fares against the rest of the cloud-storage field, we performed a series of tests uploading and downloading a zipped folder of approximately a gigabyte in size. This folder contained files of different types.

Tests were performed in over a WiFi network in Mexico. At the time they were conducted, upload speeds were measured at approximately 10Mbps and download speeds were 32Mbps.

First Attempt:

Second Attempt:

Average:

Upload time:

16 minutes, 32 seconds

14 minutes, 03 seconds

15 minutes, 29 seconds

Download time:

6 minutes, 56 seconds

6 minutes, 42 seconds

6 minutes, 49 seconds

These speeds compare favorably to other cloud storage services for initial uploads and downloads of files.

By default, Sync.com uploads and downloads files without restricting bandwidth. If you happen to have a weak connection and find the sync process interfering with other activity, you can throttle your speeds by right-clicking the Sync.com taskbar icon and selecting “preferences”. Select the “network” tab to set upload and download speed limits.

You can also set monthly upload and download limits if you’re working with a data plan that charges you for going over.

Security & Privacy Policy

100% – Excellent

Sync.com is a cloud storage service that builds its reputation around strong security and privacy, starting with its promise of zero-knowledge encryption. It is our top pick among the best zero-knowledge cloud storage services and has plenty of other options, to boot.

Sync.com uses 256-bit AES and data transmissions are further secured using TLS tunnels to protect against online eavesdropping. Encryption keys are also protected using 2048-bit RSA. Sync.com’s data centers are SOC-1 certified and make use of RAID architecture to prevent server failures from leading to data loss.

One caution with zero-knowledge security, however: if you forget your password, Sync.com won’t be able to reset it for you. That means you’ll lose access to your storage and have to rebuild it. Sync.com does let you turn off zero-knowledge security, but a better option would be to use a password manager like LastPass.

While zero-knowledge encryption and 256-bit AES are vital to building strong cloud security, both can be undone by a weak password with some good-old fashioned brute-force cracking. You want to make sure you’ve set up as strong password and may also want to take advantage of Sync.com’s two-factor authentication capabilities.

With two-factor authentication turned on, you’ll have to enter a special security code when logging into Sync.com in addition to your normal credentials. This can either be sent via email or you can setup and use Google Authenticator on your phone.

With such strong security in place, privacy policy becomes somewhat less essential, but it’s nice to see that Sync.com still provides a strong one. Based out of Toronto, the Sync.com servers fall under the protection of Canada’s consumer-friendly privacy laws, which are governed by the statutes laid out in PIPEDA, short for “Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act.”

Customer Service

90% – Excellent

Sync.com has a knowledgebase that you can use to search setup guides and tutorials if you need some help getting started. It gives you access to top questions, question categories and a search box to discover material. Overall, we found the topics discussed sufficiently broad enough to answer most questions we could think of, and nicely written.

We would like to see a user forum and video tutorials, but given that Sync.com doesn’t have the userbase of some of the larger cloud storage services, we weren’t surprised to not see those options.

If you can’t find the answers to your questions in the support center, you can fill out a webform, which can be directed to technical support, sales or general support. Help desk support hours are Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., but Sync.com does offer extended support hours for emergencies. Pro subscribers get priority support over non-paying subscribers.

We fired off a few test questions to see just how quickly we’d get a response and were happy to receive answers back within two hours during business hours, and that was with a trial account. Sync.com doesn’t have any means of getting in touch with live support, either over the phone or through live chat, which is a bit of a disappointment.

The Verdict

Our most recent look at Sync.com has done nothing to deter our opinion of the service. It remains at the top of the secure cloud storage service class thanks to its zero-knowledge capabilities and commitment to user privacy. We also applaud its approach to secure file sharing, which with a paid subscription includes password protection, expiry dates, download limits, audits and remote wiping.

Really, the only major gripe we have with Sync.com is its lack of productivity tool integrations. You can gain the benefits of both Sync.com security and a cloud storage platform with excellent productivity tools by taking a two-pronged approach to cloud storage.

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For active projects, consider using less secure options like Dropbox, Google Drive or OneDrive, which have great productivity tools. For archived projects or highly confidential files, move everything else to Sync.com.

True, using more than one storage solution can be a pain, but if security is of importance to you, you can’t go wrong with this approach. For a more detailed look, check out our comparison article on Sync.com and Google Drive.

If you have experience with Sync.com, we’d love to hear your thoughts on this service in the comments below. Or, if you like what we’ve written here, feel free to share it with your friends. Thanks for reading.

51 thoughts on “Sync.com”

Disappointed 🙁 I bough PRO account from sync.com and uploaded 22GB to the server. I shared the 22GB folder to other people (who are not pro) but they can not upload and modify it because of free account is only 5GB. Funny message appeared. Karen from Support confirmed that it is normal situation and everyone who wants to collaborate must buy Pro account. It is illogical thinking … in my opinion. They should solve that problem and clarify their point of view. It would be great if they can describe this limitation at sync.com website so people would know that fact before wasting money and time.

if a share is created by a PRO account, free accounts wont be charged for disk usage. the feature was added a couple of months ago. however i don’t think the feature was applied to old shares retroactively

Hi.
It needs to be that way and that is normal behaviour for cloud storage: A shared folder/file counts as used space on all accounts that it’s shared with. The reason is because if they didn’t do that, then anyone could open up multiple free accounts, share the folders between all accounts, and get huge amounts of free storage that way. That wouldn’t be fair to the cloud host company.

Really fast syncing and secure file sharing. I have tested the performance from multiple cities in the US, Europe and Asia and it remains consistently fast. Love the unlimited file revisions feature in my Sync 2TB Pro account. Great pricing.

To be fair, slow upload and download speeds are NOT due to encryption. Technically, the speed of encrypting and deencrypting the data depends entirely on your machine specs because that’s where it’s happening. But most modern machines can encrypt data much faster than they can upload it, even at 20Mbps. For example, large block 256-bit AES/CBC encryption should easily exceed 80MBps, which is 32x faster than your internet connection. At that rate, some hard drives might not even keep up with encryption.

In the end you uploaded at around 22Mbps and downloaded around 14Mbps. I don’t know why the download was slower but it was not due to deencryption. From what you’ve stated, something is also broken with their preview, but I highly doubt it has anything to do with encryption. It’s more likely something to do with the code (maybe JS) they’re using in the browser.

I just tried to set up sync and for some reason it did not recognize the password I set up. So, I tried to change it. The “forgot password” link only sends you a hint. In order to change a pw you must be in one of the apps or your desktop app to change. Sync has no feature to change the pw from the sync.com page. YIKES!! Moving on to vet a new cloud for my COPY replacement. If support is amazing, I will update this review. Yes, I had to write support to get a password reset……….

I was an early adopter when syn.com was early beta — opened a free account in 2013, and bought a Pro account in Jan 2014.

I *love* sync.com. It works completely seamlessly on all my machines (I switch between three laptops, a desktop, two tablets, and a phone). Working files are always synced immediately on starting up, so I can stop working on something at one location, and pick up where I left off on a different machine later. Total security and privacy… what’s not to love? I have also received outstanding customer service on the few occasions when I’ve needed something. Really, an outstanding value. Makes DropBox look old, lame and leaky.

Thanks, I think I overestimated need to back up movies. They are all in iTunes and a couple externals. Looking at backing up my main files under User on my MacBook Pro instead. Didn’t like BackBlazes metadata and restore issues.

I am on Linux and have been using Sync for over half a year now and I love it!

As there is no desktop client for Linux I am using the web interface which is working fine. I have inquired if they are working on a Linux desktop version, but they replied they have to get more requests in order to do so….

Please drop them an email if this is something you would want to be seen developed as well. I think this service would be of great interest to the Linux community.

I have 250 files in my sync folder and I cannot find a file search tool on the android app? Does one exist? Or is there a way to make the files visible to android file search apps?
Apart from this one little issue I am a very happy new user.

Well to me it’s quite useful and fast, in fact I am planning to start using it instead of Dropbox.
I really like the fact that it’s encrypted (unlike DP!!!!) and really keeps your privacy in tact, bye bye NSA!!

I am trying out sync for the first time. I am having issues with the files that was transferred to the local folder of the sync desktop application, and when I compared the files uploaded to sync versus the files from my computer, some items are missing. Help please. Thanks!

I have installed the Windows version of the Sync app on a WindowsXP system, because Dropbox is about to stop working on WindowsXP. Is there any commitment from Sync that they will continue to support XP?

Now they offer Password recovery without end to end encryption. How does this fit with the zero knowledge model? I like the service, but they should not break the security model. Ok it is optional in the security section, but the possibility to break zero knowledge is what is different to competitors like tresorit or spideroak. Again, i like them, but have to think about it after this move.

Sync is completely zero-knowledge by default, and your encryption keys are only accessible by you. We provide a technical summary of our zero-knowledge implementation here: https://www.sync.com/pdf/sync-privacy.pdf.

With regards to password recovery:

Password recovery is a great example of how Sync does “zero knowledge first”. By default, if you forget your password, your account and all of your data in the cloud is lost forever. There’s no recourse here (unless you have a desktop app installed, which provides local password reset options).

Password recovery is NOT enabled or even available by default, and technically this feature can only be enabled locally (via the web app, where source code is available). It cannot be enabled server-side (eg. we can’t flip a switch) and it has to be enabled before you forget your password (it cannot be enabled if you’ve already forgotten your password).

User choice is important, and we believe that as long as we are transparent about it, we can make Sync open and accessible to all users, and ensure that by default, Sync is always 100% zero-knowledge.

By default Sync is completely zero-knowledge. We don’t have access to your encryption keys, and we don’t store or transmit your password, ever. Your encryption keys are generated locally (either within the web app, which runs locally within your web browser, or the desktop apps), and your files are encrypted and decrypted locally using these keys.

We don’t have access to your keys, because they are locked with your password (which is never transmitted or stored). For a technical summary of our zero-knowledge implementation click here: https://www.sync.com/pdf/sync-privacy.pdf.

With regards to password recovery:

By default there is no way for you, as a Sync user, to recover your password. If you forget your password, your account and all of your data in the cloud is lost forever. While this is exactly what you and I want, the consequences of losing a password are not always an option for everyone. As such we provide an optional password recovery mechanism.

Password recovery is NOT enabled or even available by default, and technically this feature can only be enabled locally (via the web app, where source code is available). It cannot be enabled server-side (eg. we can’t flip a switch) and it has to be enabled before you forget your password (it cannot be enabled after the fact).

I am a user of Sync and can say that I am, so far, very happy with the service. It isn’t entirely flawless/seamless and there is always room for continued improvement and modification, but all-in-all, I definitely view (and use) it as a secure alternative to other services. Of course, this is all predicated on the assumption that the platform is as secure as the company says it is, without any fatal flaws, holes, backdoors, etc.

Having used Sync for a while though, my biggest concern is that the company doesn’t seem to be engaged in much of (if any) updating to its desktop and mobile apps (and there are clearly a number things that can/need to still be implemented/tweaked). I assume this is a business decision based on available resources (e.g., cashflow and/or staff and manpower), but if that is the case, then it raises some other potential concerns as well–namely, the long-term sustainability of Sync. Please do not misunderstand, without concrete information, I have no way of knowing if this is the case or not, but I do know that thriving entities would seek to constantly push out improvements and updates, and yet we just haven’t seen this from the company for months/a year+. This is definitely something users notice, especially given how many cloud storage companies we’ve all seen come and go at this point.

For what it is currently, Sync is a good if not great service; however, based on a colossal lack of communication and updates from the company, it’s not without some concern as to where the long-term direction of the company lies and if it will actually be able to get there.

Agreed, this is my main worry for now. Especially since there’s a major bug in the mobile app where it keeps uploading files even though i set it to only upload when wifi is available. Totally burst my data cap and i had to uninstall the app.

The lack of communication or updates from the company doesn’t give us much confidence either. Makes me wonder whether they’re about to go bust all of a sudden.

Hi I’m a free Sync user at the moment but really on the way to turn Pro with a 2TB offer. I like the service, but what is still preventing me from going Pro and fully replace my Dropbox account is the lack of a desktop Linux app. Hope the roadmap to it will be shorten. Thank you

Im in Australia if anybody is interested, I’ve just recently switched from Google Drive to Sync. All i can say is that it works Great, I’m really happy with the service. I emailed customer support twice with some detailed questions about the company, i got some excellent replies back, and was really surprised with how professional they were about it.

You all need to remember this is a VERY VERY new company, this will only keep getting better and better, they need improvements in certain area’s, but they are listening to customers requests.

One thing they have said is they are completely re-designing the mobile apps from the beginning, which is good to hear!!

I can see this cloud service really succeeding, I’m impressed so far. Uploaded 200GB to the service on the 500GB pro plan, upload & download speeds were constant. Very Happy

Cheap, great features (zero knowledge is really cool), unfortunately quite slow (both at home and from work, maximum 2MB/s often far less, from Europe). I have taken the 2TB package and will look how many weeks it’ll take to upload the files… 😉 I hope the speed will be sufficient in daily use after the upload. The mobile app doesn’t upload video from the android camera, hope that will be fixed in the future.

Update after a few days.
I’m really happy; my big files still uploads but aside this Syncs performance is quite well and so I use it now as my primary storage cloud provider (Syncthing manages the android camera backups and the linux client). I’ve seen Sync downloads up to 8MB/s – great, hopefully the uploads will catch this sometime.

Features needed:
– More space, hope someday it’ll be possible to buy more than 2 TB space

Sync.com is working on a Linux client, but I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you. It’s a real shame, too, but if you want to make use of Sync.com, I’m afraid you’ll probably have to get used to using the VM. If a Linux client does come out, we’ll be the first to let you know.

Just a question, I am a photographer. I want to be able to store my photos, in particular my Raw photos off my computer as they take up a lot of storage space. My impression about syncing is that, in essence, it is a mirror of a particular folder is saved online. Therefore the photos still reside on my computer.That doesn’t fit my requirement. Can this program be used just for storage rather that just backing up my folders?

Hi, Othneal, thanks for reading and commenting. It’s a good question. While syncing does work by mirroring files across devices, most cloud storage services offer selective sync, which simply lets you turn sync off for a folder. That way, it’s only stored the cloud, saving space on your computer. In addition to selective sync, Sync.com also has a “vault” storage feature that works as a cloud-only folder (no syncing). So, those are two approaches you could take.

Could this product be used as a backup destination? I currently use iDrive but would like to have my backups reside in Canada. Does your app allow for any scheduled backups or is it possible to use Cloudberry to accomplish this?
Thanks!